The owners of Southern Pig & Cattle Company can legitimately call barbecue their family business.

With five family-run Dustin's Bar-B-Q restaurants in Florida, and several Sonny's franchises under their belts, the Tomlinsons and their partner Gary Nolan are branching out with a new eatery that promises the family atmosphere of a cattle ranch and made-from-scratch dishes.

Right down to the sauces.

My hopes were high that the food would be good, and I wasn't disappointed.

The menu offers all the barbecue standards — pulled pork, brisket, ribs and chicken — with a few extras. The Southern fried catfish sandwich was tempting, and Cajun garlic shrimp sounded tasty, too. Hand-cut steaks also are a specialty here, with prime rib available on weekends.

There wasn't room for appetizers at lunch time, but pig wings, buffalo shrimp and corn nuggets all seemed like good contenders.

We did take advantage of the salad bar, which included plenty of toppings, fruit and dessert. My guest pointed out that it had coleslaw and potato salad, too, so we didn't need to order those as sides. The bar was $2.99 with our meals, $7.49 on its own.

For the main attraction, the 1/4 barbecue chicken lunch didn't look particularly appetizing on the plate ($7.49). My guest chose white meat, and it was a small piece, visibly dry. Some barbecue sauce improved the situation, but the dish still wasn't a winner.

Maybe he should have stuck with pig or cattle, because I was very pleased with my choice: a half rack of baby back ribs with baked beans and extra-creamy mac and cheese ($9.79).

The meat came right off the bone, and sauce had been applied in the perfect way to make the meat sweet and moist but keep my hands relatively clean. That gets bonus points in my book, and it allowed me to experiment with the three options on the table (sweet, hot, and mild), when a little more sauce was needed.

There already are plans to grow this restaurant with additional locations, starting in Ocala. If Southern Pig & Cattle eventually becomes a chain, it will be fun to know we had the first one here in Stuart.